32 THE FARMER AND THE NEW DAY 



The farmer grows wheat. Why? To sell it, of course. 

 To whom will he sell it? Always to the people who 

 eat bread and who can't produce wheat. If the farmer 

 does not produce enough, prices will be so high that 

 consumers can't have what they need. If farmers 

 produce too much, prices will be so low that farmers 

 cannot afford to grow. If the world needs four billion 

 bushels of wheat, the farmer's task is to produce ex- 

 actly that amount, at as low a cost of production as 

 possible, with a fair profit for his toil. This arrange- 

 ment cannot be achieved completely in practice; but 

 it is the big thing to try for. We must think then of 

 farming as mainly an effort to supply the demand for 

 food. 



We now begin at the other end the wrong end. 

 But we must find out what the folks of the world 

 want to eat, where they want it, in what form they want 

 it and when they want it. The farmers must then un- 

 dertake to meet these wants. In the New Day, the 

 prime condition of the farmer's success consists in 

 relating his work to the whole program of food supply. 

 It is legitimate for him to try to change consumption; 

 he may seek to persuade consumers to increase the use 

 of certain products, to purchase the better and more 

 expensive grades, to buy home grown products, etc. 

 But the great currents of food demand determine the 

 farmer's task. Of course, we must add to " food " 

 all other products grown from the soil, including ani- 

 mal feeds such as hay and other forage; materials for 

 clothing and other fibers such as cotton, wool, hemp 

 and flax. Taken together, these other products repre- 

 sent a very considerable proportion of the agricultural 

 industry. Hence for example, in 1914, while the wheat 

 crop of the United States was worth $878,680,000, 



